The Linux Foundation announced its intent to launch the Open Health Stack Software Foundation (OHS-SF). The new Foundation will provide a vendor-neutral, community-led home for the open source software tools developers use to build AI-enabled digital health solutions.
Digital health infrastructure remains fragmented, creating barriers to interoperability and limiting adoption of emerging technologies across health systems. OHS-SF is designed to address this challenge by providing developers with standards-based, community-governed tools needed to build interoperable health applications, drive local innovation and help close health equity gaps – particularly in resource-constrained areas.
“Open source has already transformed enterprise software, cloud computing, and AI, and it will do the same for how the world delivers care,” said Jim Zemlin, CEO of the Linux Foundation. “The Open Health Stack Software Foundation brings together the global community of developers, health organizations, and implementers under a vendor-neutral, community-governed home, ensuring that the tools powering tomorrow’s AI-enabled health systems are built in the open, for everyone.”
Grounded in global open standards, the Foundation will support three primary technical pillars: 1) core HL7 FHIR foundations; 2) the “OHS Player,” a multiplatform reference toolkit for local deployments; and 3) AI Commons, a neutral, model-agnostic space for enabling safe, effective and verifiable AI in global health co-developed with the World Health Organization (WHO).
Launched in 2023 with Google, the Open Health Stack project now includes a global ecosystem of developers and implementers. Google will contribute the project to the Foundation, including the code and underlying Open Health Stack assets. To support the Foundation, Google.org is providing a $3 million grant, helping drive long-term growth and implementation.
“We built Open Health Stack because we wanted to put the developers and community health care workers serving people on the edges of care back at the center of development and give them access to world-class tools for building next-gen digital health solutions,” said Kat Chou, Vice President at Google Research. “Contributing OHS to the Linux Foundation, with the support of WHO and a growing global community, ensures these building blocks will continue to evolve – now extending into AI for Global Digital Health – under governance that reflects the diversity of the communities they serve. OHS-SF makes it easier for developers everywhere to innovate on the next generation of digital health applications, and we’re proud to support its long-term success.”
Organizations that have expressed initial support for the Foundation include (in alphabetical order): Argusoft, Anthropic, Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN), the Center for Global Digital Health Innovation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Endless Health, Google, HELINA, IntelliSOFT Consulting Limited, IPRD Solutions, Jacaranda Health, Khushi Baby, Medtronic Labs, Madiro, Microsoft, Nawi, Ona, OpenMRS, PATH, The Agency Fund, The Summit Institute for Development, and the World Health Organization, as well as advisory support from UNICEF.
To ensure developers from low- and middle-income countries can participate directly in governance, OHS-SF is introducing an Implementer Program. This initiative allows small businesses, local consulting firms, and pre-revenue startups to join and shape the project direction without financial barriers. OHS-SF is now open for participation. Learn more at ohs.foundation
